The present invention relates to a laser oscillating apparatus, and in more detail, pertains to a laser oscillating apparatus of the three perpendicular axis type which is formed in an extremely compact manner and which is easy to use.
As an example of the laser oscillating apparatus which is compactly designed, there may be mentioned, for example, the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,143.
The prior art apparatus is composed by enclosing a pair of discharge electrodes, a blower for sending a flow of gas to the lasing region formed between the discharge electrodes, and heat exchangers for cooling the gas flow, in a cylindrical laser housing, and providing a pair of mirrors of the resonator on both ends of the spacer rod that extends penetrating through the laser's housing.
However, in such a prior art laser oscillating apparatus, there is provided an optical bench that has spacer rods, separate from the laser housing, due to the necessity of supporting the attitude of the mirrors of the optical resonator mirrors with high procision. This leads to a complexity and an increase in weight of the oscillation unit and to a high cost of the laser oscillating apparatus.
For instance, in the above example, the spacer rods penetrate through the laser housing and the mirrors of the optical resonator are provided on their both ends. Therefore, it becomes necessary to provide special means such as to cover the mirror section with bellows in order to preserve the gas-tight integrity of the laser housing.
Furthermore, the laser oscillating apparatus should be manufactured in such a way as to facilitate assemblage, repairs, and adjustments. However, these operations for the conventional laser oscillating apparatus have not necessarily been made easy.
For example, each element of the enclosed structures is mounted individually in the laser's housing. Therefore, mounting and dismounting of each element in and out of the laser's housing require much trouble, and also matching among various elements is rather difficult.
Moreover, when a compact design for a high performance laser oscillating apparatus is attemped, there will be required a fast rotating blower that is to be operated in an environment with large temperature variations. However, the customary blower is unable to fully satisfy that requirement so that it is difficult to obtain a desired gas flow.